Looking For Advice/opinions On My Wood

I am trying to be thrifty on my tank so I am trying to use my own driftwood instead of getting it from the store. The first piece I have I got from my girlfriends mother. Not sure where it came from but we are in south Florida so there is a good chance it came from the beach here. It is a hard wood I cant dig my finger nail into it.

Then today I went beach combing in south Florida and found two pieces of wood.

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Not sure what wood they are but there is a ton of mangroves down here so I would guess its mangrove wood. The one is too long and needs cut in half. Any advice on doing that and making it look less like I cut it in half would be great. I might be able to boil some of the wood but not all of it. Should I just skip boiling and just soak the crap out of it for a few weeks? Just looking for advice. Never used wood in a tank yet just going off things I have read on the internet. Trying real hard to build this tank on a budget.

Oh come to think of it I read about that! I will do that for sure then soak it after in case there is any residual soap.

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If you do this, run your dishwasher without soap or rinse before you run the wood in it. Then run your dishwasher with soap before you use it for dishes.

My favorite way to make the ends of cut wood look like old broken wood is using a Dremel tool. The manzanita I ordered will need cutting too. I’m going to boil mine in half a 55 gallon drum over fire. Hubby says all your wood pieces look great.
If you go to the fishlore aquarium tab, go to driftwood and they’ll tell you exactly the best way to treat it.

Just an update on this... The first piece of wood I got to sink now in less than 2 days. Basically I took it weighted it down in a bucket and then I had two pots running on the stove and I would boil water and dump it in the bucket. I got the water in the bucket very very hot this way and it stayed warm for 6-8 hours. Lots of tannins came off then for the next round I wen't the lazy way and used the hottest water possible from the shower and filled the bucket as much as I could so I could still get it outside and not have complaints about the stink. Then i topped the bucket off with boiling water. After a that bath it sinks and does not float. Then I put it in one more time just to get any extra tannins I could. Very happy it worked so well and quickly. The dish washer would probably be good too but mine is always full of dishes so I improvised.

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